


Lev Dabbles in Kidnapping

by adroite



Category: Unwind Dystology - Neal Shusterman
Genre: Explicit Language, Gen, Hair Dyeing, Kidnapping, Lev is secretly gay but it's not relevant to the story so I didn't include it, Not Canon Compliant, One Shot, but for a good cause
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25351318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adroite/pseuds/adroite
Summary: After thirty long hours of driving, Connor and Lev have arrived in Akron, Ohio, a place to which they never thought they'd return. They have a clear destination in mind, but a few spontaneous stops on the way are necessary. Neither of them expect one of those stops to include a casual kidnapping.
Relationships: Lev Calder & Connor Lassiter
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	Lev Dabbles in Kidnapping

**Author's Note:**

> important: i've only read unwind and unwholly, not the last two books! so this takes place right after unwholly, and i'm sure it's not canon compliant in the slightest, but please enjoy my idea of what lev and connor get up to in their hometown! i care them <3

When they enter Akron, Lev is asleep.

They’re stopped in a strip mall parking lot when Connor shakes him awake. It’s an overcast morning, and Lev would have no idea they were in his hometown if Connor hadn’t said so. Akron looks like every other mid-sized Midwestern city—especially the strip malls.

This must be a special one, though, because once Lev is fully upright and has shaken off most of his grogginess, Connor points out the windshield with a conniving grin. “See where we are?” he says. Lev rubs his eyes and looks out the window. They’re parked in front of Great Clips, and a neon OPEN sign blazes in the shop’s window.

It takes a moment for Lev to connect the dots, but when he does, his eyes widen, and he whips his head around to look at Connor. “No,” he says. “I like my hair how it is. You can’t make me do anything. You can’t even afford Great Clips!”

“You have a mullet, Levi!” Connor says. He laughs, and it de-ages him several years. He’s been tired lately, having been the only driver on the thirty-hour trip to Akron, but the genuine joy he seems to feel at the thought of chopping off Lev’s hair washes some of his exhaustion away.

Lev is tempted to laugh with him, but he tries to keep a straight face as he buckles his seatbelt and pushes down his door lock. “I’m not going in,” he says. “I like my mullet.”

“Fine,” Connor concedes, unlocking his own door and reaching across Lev to unlock his as well. “You can keep the mullet. But at least come get it cleaned up. Just because you’re a street rat doesn’t mean you need to look like one. Maybe you can get it dyed too.”

Lev thinks for a moment. Connor isn’t wrong—while Lev likes the long hair, it is a little out of control, and he has quite a few split ends. He’s never considered dyeing his hair before. It was never an option. He’s not really sure what color he would go for, but the idea of making such a drastic change to his appearance entices him. He carefully unbuckles his seatbelt. “Okay. You need to get your hair fixed up too, though. Whoever was cutting it for you at the Graveyard must have secretly hated you.”

“That’s the plan,” Connor says. He glances in the rearview mirror for a moment, combing his fingers through his dark loose curls. “Is it really that ba—”

“Yes.”

—

A few hours later, Lev and Connor—well, Ethan and Tommy, as the names Karla bestowed upon them at the diner outside Tucson stuck for their fake identities—walk out of Great Clips looking like two totally different people. Connor’s dark hair is clipped short and styled, and the overzealous stylist insisted on plucking his bushy eyebrows as well, so he looks more put-together than he has since he left home over a year ago.

Lev, on the other hand, is convinced he could walk right into his old house and not be recognized. His hair has been trimmed, but it still almost reaches his shoulders. Better yet, the dirty blond is now a dirty green. He didn’t want to commit to fully bleaching it, so the stylist agreed to lay the pastel green color over his already light hair. The result is a somewhat patchy but surprisingly vibrant green color. Connor made fun of him, but he likes it.

“You know where we should go next? A tattoo shop,” Lev says, buzzing with energy as they head for Karla’s car. “I want to get my ears pierced.”

“Okay,” Connor laughs. “We’ll just pull up with no ID and ask them to pierce a middle schooler’s ears.”

“I’m fourteen!” Lev protests. “I’d at least be a freshman in high school by now.”

“That’ll convince them,” Connor says, shooting Lev a look as he unlocks the car and slides into the driver’s seat. Lev gets into the passenger seat, pouting as he buckles himself in. Having his hair dyed is the most fun he’s had in the past year. He wants to do something like that again, and he’s always admired his older sisters’ earrings. An idea dawns on him as Connor begins to pull out of the strip mall parking lot. There’s no reason he can’t pierce his ears himself—surely there are plenty of tutorials online.

“Does Sonia’s thrift store have wifi?” Lev asks, glancing back at the laptop in the backseat.

“I’m sure it does,” Connor says, only half paying attention to Lev. “Why?”

“I just want to look something up when we get there.” He glances at Connor’s GPS, which is still showing the route to the thrift shop, though it’s much closer now than it was the last time Lev checked it. The streets and subdivisions in the surrounding area are labelled, and one of them catches Lev’s eye. “Holly Creek,” he mumbles.

“What?”

Lev looks up at Connor. “Um, how would you feel about making a stop before we get to Sonia’s? It’s on the way.”

“I’m not taking you to a tattoo shop—”

“It’s not that!” Lev says. “There’s just… someone I wanna visit.”

Connor looks at Lev out of the corner of his eye. “Someone who won’t turn you in for violating your parole?” he says. A year ago, he probably wouldn’t have even thought to ask. He’s more careful now.

“Yes,” Lev says, frustrated. Or at least he hopes so. It’s just after noon on a weekday; his parents will be at work, his siblings at school or their own jobs. If Marcus is still living at home after his surgery, he’ll be the only one around right now.

Connor nods curtly. “Put it in the GPS.”

—

As Connor pulls into the wide cul de sac, Lev feels his skin crawl. These perfect, tall houses with their neatly trimmed lawns, newly painted shutters, and American flags fluttering on the porches once made Lev feel safe. This was his home once. Now, it only fills him with disgust.

They park on the side of the cul de sac opposite Lev’s old house, and he unbuckles his seatbelt as he scans the windows for signs of life. Looking at the upstairs windows, he almost misses a flash of movement in the driveway. He glances down and sees a toddler struggling to push the pedals of a mini tricycle. One of Lev’s older sisters, Sarah, leans down and helps the toddler move. His stomach turns as he watches them. It isn’t the wholesome family moment that unnerves him, but the baby’s outfit—tithing whites. This is the child he saw at the hospital when his family came to visit Marcus. This is their new human sacrifice.

“Lev?” Connor says. “Is that who you wanted to come visit? Your sister and her kid?”

“That’s not her kid,” Lev says absentmindedly, forgetting to answer Connor’s other question. She isn’t the baby’s mother, Mary is; Sarah must be babysitting.

“Well… are you gonna go say hi? The sooner we get out of this neighborhood, the better,” Connor says, glancing around to see if any neighbors have spotted them.

Lev is about to say no when he notices Sarah saying something to the toddler. She holds up a finger, as if telling the kid to wait, and then heads for the front door. As she steps inside, out of sight, Lev gets a brilliant, terrible idea. “Yes,” he says, opening his door rapidly and shooting out of the car.

He jogs to the other side of the cul de sac, staying low as he reaches the house. Sarah left the front door cracked open, and he can see a sliver of her leg as she walks to the kitchen. He crouches down next to the toddler—his nephew—and smiles, despite the pain it causes him to see such a young child already marked for unwinding. “Hi there,” he says softly. The toddler giggles and reaches out to tug at a piece of Lev’s hair.

Lev carefully holds out his arms, and the toddler stands up and waddles over, looking skeptically at his hands and his face before giving in and accepting the hug. As Lev hugs the baby, he picks him up, a rush of adrenaline coursing through him. He walks quickly back to the car and slips into the passenger seat. “Drive,” he tells Connor. Despite his shaking hands, his voice is firm. And though Connor starts the car, he’s glaring at Lev.

“No,” he whispers furiously. “Put the baby back! We can’t just abduct a child!”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with it when you took that storked baby,” Lev whisper-yells back. The toddler in his arms starts fussing.

“That baby was storked! This baby is wanted! I can’t let you do this,” Connor moves to turn off the car, but Lev reaches out and grabs his hand.

“He’s a Tithe,” he says, not realizing his eyes are now wet with tears. “The baby is a Tithe. I can’t—I can’t just let—”

Connor wrenches his hand away, but instead of reaching to kill the ignition, he shifts the car into drive. He turns around slowly, but as soon as they’re out of the cul de sac, he begins speeding. “Fuck,” he says. “Fuck fuck fuck.” Lev covers the baby’s ears. “Put on your seatbelt!” Connor says, and Lev fumbles to pull the seatbelt over himself and his nephew. The baby starts crying.

“Maybe slow down?” Lev suggests, his voice strained with panic.

“I can’t slow down! You just abducted a child!”

 _Fuck_ , Lev thinks. _I just abducted a child._

Connor keeps his foot on the gas until they’re a few miles away from Holly Creek. He stops in another strip mall parking lot, and they all sit there for a moment, the toddler’s wailing filling the car as Lev and Connor stare at one another silently.

“Why did we just do that?” Connor gasps. “Why? _Why?_ I’m supposed to think before I do things now! I’m not supposed to be impulsive anymore!”

“I wish Risa were here,” Lev laments.

“Shut up,” Connor says. He holds out his hands, and Lev doesn’t understand what he wants until he remembers there’s a crying toddler in his lap. He hands the kid to Connor, who starts bouncing his leg and rubbing the baby’s back to try and soothe him. “You’re okay,” he whispers, though it seems like he’s talking to both himself and the toddler. “It’ll be okay. You’re okay.” 

The crying slowly tapers off, and Connor and Lev both sigh and slump back in their seats as the toddler stares at them with wide eyes.

“So… what’s his name?” Connor says, glancing at Lev.

“Um… good question,” Lev says, laughing nervously.

“You don’t know your own family’s name?” Connor asks in an accusatory tone, sitting upright.

“I usually do! But… he was born after I left. I only know him because I saw him at the hospital a few months ago. After the Girl Scout…”

“Oh. Well… we need to call him something.”

Lev thinks for a moment. An idea comes to him, but he finds himself choked up when he tries to say it out loud. He takes a breath and tries again, “How about Daniel?”

“Sounds good.” Connor shrugs. He has no idea about the significance of that name. Sure, Lev has mentioned Pastor Dan to him before, but he’s sure the name has slipped in and out of Connor’s mind when it was no longer relevant. Lev doesn’t blame him. Connor is looking at his GPS when Lev glances over again. “We’re about ten minutes away from Sonia’s. I guess you can hold him until then. And let’s pray that she has a carseat.”

—

Thankfully, there are no customers when they arrive at the antique store. Just Sonia, sitting at the counter doing a crossword puzzle when they walk in. The place is dusty and a little dim, but it’s oddly comforting to Lev. Connor balances the toddler on his hip as they enter the shop, and Lev walks behind him sheepishly. The bell that rings when they open the door announces their arrival, but the woman behind the counter doesn’t move.

“Hi, Sonia,” Connor says.

The old woman looks up. She has a hawkish sort of face, but if Lev looks past the wrinkles and the graying hair, he can tell she was once gorgeous. Not that she isn’t pretty now—she’s beautiful! Just old. Moments like these make grateful that no one can read his mind. 

Sonia studies the three of them for a moment before her face breaks into a wry smile.

“The Akron AWOL graces my shop once more,” she says, and Lev is surprised by the sheer amount of sarcasm in her voice. “And this time with a new companion—and is that a new baby too?” Connor looks down, almost ashamed. “Let’s go to the back, you three,” Sonia says, gesturing to a door leading to another room in the back of the shop. She reaches below the counter and pulls out a sign that reads, BE BACK SOON, setting on the countertop. 

The back room she escorts them to is mostly filled with junk, but Connor smiles fondly when they enter the room. Lev remembers him talking about how he and Risa stayed here after they ran away from the school they’d been hiding at together. Lev still feels a pang of guilt remembering how he’d betrayed them then.

“Do I want to know about the baby?” Sonia says, raising an eyebrow as she looks at Connor. He opens his mouth to respond, but Lev cuts in. 

“That’s my fault, ma’am,” he says softly. She turns to look at him, and he feels himself shrinking beneath her gaze. Despite her age, her brown eyes still have a lively spark in them.

“Call me Sonia,” she says. “And you are…?”

“Lev,” he answers, holding out a hand. She laughs but takes the offer anyway, reaching out to shake Lev’s hand.

“Wait a minute.” Her eyes narrow. There it is. “Levi Calder… the ex-tithe. Pleased to meet you. Though, I’ll say, you look quite different from your photo.” Lev can’t suppress a laugh at that, remembering how his clean cut seventh grade school picture was plastered on magazine covers only a few months ago. He’s pleased by how she called him an ‘ex-tithe’, rather than ‘the clapper who didn’t clap’, or ‘the kid who let down his entire family and religion’. The way she said it carried an air of respect. Sonia glances back at Connor, who’s still holding Daniel. “What’s the little one called?” she asks. “And, if I may ask, what makes it ‘your fault’?”

Lev can’t hold back a sigh. “Daniel,” he says. “And… I kind of… stole him. Just now.”

Sonia looks back and forth between Lev and Connor, then takes a step closer to look at Daniel. The toddler whines and pushes her away. “This isn’t a stork baby,” she notes. “He’s much too old.”

“Right,” Lev says. “He’s my sister’s son. My nephew. He’s a Tithe. I didn’t plan on taking him. I just saw him and realized… I don’t know how I could live with myself if I let him grow up the same way I did. Brainwashed to be a human sacrifice.” His expression twists, and he feels rage seeping in. He has better control over his emotions now, however, and he takes a deep breath. “I know it’s wrong, but I figure since Connor has spent the past year saving other Unwinds… and there’s a whole safe house dedicated to rescuing Tithes… this isn’t much different, right?”

He knows that it’s very different, but he hopes they’re convinced. He doesn’t even know if he’s convinced. But they can’t just bring the baby back, can they? Connor and Sonia are both staring at him, and he feels himself growing small again.

“Well… anyway,” Connor says, seemingly desperate to change the subject and get to the real reason they’re here. “I’m sorry to barge in on you, Sonia. But we… kind of need your help. I’m sure you heard, but they raided the Graveyard. That’s where we were sent—Risa and I—after you housed us. As far as I know, it was basically the biggest AWOL sanctuary in the country. Lev and I weren’t really sure where to go after that… we just knew that we needed to keep working to put a stop to unwinding. And we think you might be able to help us.”

“And why do you think that?” Sonia asks, smiling and raising an eyebrow as she stares at Connor.

“Because… you were once married to Janson Rheinschild, weren’t you?” 

Sonia’s smile quickly shifts to a silent, grim expression. Her eyebrows knit together. “How do you know that?” she says, her voice much softer than it was before.

“Lots of research,” Connor explains, shifting so that Daniel sits on his other hip. “We think you might be our last chance at making real change. So… can you help us?”

Sonia looks between them again, her expression far graver now. She begins to walk away, and Connor deflates, seeming to realize that there’s no way he can force her to help them. They might be on their own, after all. Lev is about to turn and ask him where they’re going to go from here when Sonia returns with a thick, dusty book between her hands. “This is one of the few things Janson left behind,” she says. “Journals, early studies. I haven’t looked at it in years… but I’m sure there are things in here that could be of use to you two. So, I suppose I can help you. On one condition.”

Connor nods enthusiastically. “Anything—what do you need?”

“It’s not what I need,” Sonia says, looking at Lev. “It’s you. You need to return that baby to his family.”

—

They don’t return Daniel in his tithing whites. In fact, Lev insists on burning those clothes, though they decide to wait until they’re out of town to do so. “To get rid of fingerprints, stuff like that,” Lev explains, though he’s sure Connor can see right through him. There are far more symbolic reasons he wants to set those clothes on fire.

Instead, they dress Daniel in some baby clothes that they buy at the Goodwill a block away from Sonia’s shop. They send Connor alone—taking Daniel would instantly put a target on their back, and Lev is too easily recognizable. He returns with far more clothing than any of them anticipated. “I realized when I got there that I have no clue what size he wears,” Connor says sheepishly. “So, I just kind of got as much as I could.”

They end up dressing him in a blue t-shirt with a green dinosaur printed on the front and a pair of tiny khaki shorts. He fusses while they change his clothes, but he’s pleased afterwards, and he spends a while toddling around in Sonia’s shop while Lev and Connor come up with a plan to bring him back.

It’s the dead of night when they return to the cul de sac in Holly Creek where Lev used to live. Daniel is asleep in Lev’s arms, and Lev carries him gently across the dewy lawn as he circles around to the back of the house. When he lived here, his parents never locked the back door, and this entire plan hinges on this not having changed. He struggles to hold onto Daniel as he reaches for back door handle, but he manages, silently reveling in his victory as the door swings open. He steps inside and leaves the door ajar behind him.

Going upstairs would be too risky, so he decides to leave Daniel in the living room, curled up on the couch. He initially worried it might be unsafe to leave him there, but he eventually realized that Daniel is safer anywhere in this house than he was with Lev. He slides an enveloped note beneath the cushion Daniel uses as a pillow and steals out the back door.

As he slips into the passenger seat of Connor’s car, he half expects the neighborhood to light up, police sirens to begin blaring, and Juvey cops to jump out of hiding and tranq them both before they have a chance to drive away. But they drive out of the neighborhood slowly, carefully, and without incident. The weight of their luck isn’t wasted on either of them, and they decide to treat themselves to an actual sit-down dinner at a local diner that evening rather than resorting to dumpster diving or straight-up stealing like most days.

“Jesus Christ,” Connor says between mouthfuls of a large, syrupy waffle. They're the first words either of them have spoken since they decided on where they would go for dinner. “What a fucking fantastic first day back home.”

“Sorry,” Lev says, resting his head in one hand and staring down at his food. He’s almost completely devoured it by now, but one egg still stares back up at him, waiting to be cut open and mopped up with a piece of toast.

He feels a kick under the table and glances up at Connor. “Don’t apologize,” he says, smiling slightly. “We all have our moments. Some of us grab storked babies off random doorsteps, some of us try to save our nephews from becoming a human sacrifice.” He shrugs. “Human nature.”

Lev smiles back. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess so.”

They continue eating in near silence, but once their plates are both clean, Connor nudges Lev again. “What did you put in that note, by the way? The one you left with Daniel.”

Rather than answering verbally, Lev pulls a folded-up piece of paper out of his pocket. This is the first draft of the note he wrote. He found himself crossing out and rewording so many things that he decided it would be better to rewrite it entirely. He’s not sure why he hung onto this one, but now he’s glad that he did, because it’s much easier to let Connor read it for himself than try to explain the contents.

_To his family—_

_~~Daniel~~ _ _Your kid is safe. I never would have dreamed of hurting him; I just wanted a better life for him. I know you marked him for tithing, but ~~please consider changing~~ he does not deserve this fate. No one does. Once, I talked with a man of faith who had ~~left the church~~ ~~abandoned~~ changed his convictions because he disagreed with the practice of unwinding. I asked him if he still believed in God. He said, “I believe in a God that doesn’t condone human tithing…”_

The note goes on for far longer, and Lev is sure Connor isn’t reading the entire thing, only skimming. He can’t blame him; Lev quotes the bible, appeals to the emotional side he knows his parents must have, and explains why he stole Daniel’s tithing whites. He does everything possible to conceal his identity, even having written the letter with his left hand, but he’s sure they’ll see right through it. Maybe they’ll send the full force of the Juvey cops after him once they decode it, or maybe they’ll go on pretending he doesn’t exist. Either way, the baby should be safe. That’s all that really matters to him.

He can feel himself slipping back into those self-destructive ways of thinking, the suicidal thoughts that mask themselves behind the idea that his death would serve the greater good. Thankfully, he’s not at the point where he wants to fill his body with explosive compounds and blow up a harvest camp, and he hopes he’ll never find himself in that place again, but the darkest places of his mind have not magically disappeared because of his brief stint in a contrived sense of safety with Marcus and Pastor Dan. He stares across the table, studying Connor as he reads the letter. Maybe he should share some of these thoughts—maybe talking about it would help. He _knows_ talking about it would help, but he also knows Connor has more important things to worry about than the things that go on inside Lev’s head.

That’s what will keep him alive, though—those more important things. Despite the shitshow that today was, it did ultimately give Lev a spark of hope. They have a lead now, and they also have an ally who isn’t a fifteen-year-old runaway or an ailing admiral. When Connor finally finishes reading the letter, he looks up, and Lev is shocked to see that he’s almost misty-eyed.

“That’s good,” is all Connor says, sliding the letter back across the table. And that’s all Lev needs to hear—that’s good.

They’re good, for now.

**Author's Note:**

> huge thanks to my friends lau and martina for proofreading for me and helping me make this better even though you've never read this series in your lives (god bless you both).
> 
> if you liked this one shot, let me know! i'm honestly not opposed to writing more if there's a demand for it <3


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